Written in 1958, The Subterraneans is Kerouac’s attempt at a memoir about the time-honored literary theme of relationships. At a superficial level, it is merely a novella about how a relationship can crumble in the face societal pressures. However, like relationships, one should never take a person, or written work, at merely face value. The Subterraneans is much more than a romance in the vein of “He’s just not that into you.” The relationship itself is something of taboo in the 1950s, Kerouac’s style of prose experimental, and his description of the beat culture in this book sets in motion the evolution of Beats to Hippies and, now, the Hipsters.



This novella takes the opportunity to explore the relationship between an African American woman (Mardou Fox) and a Caucasian male (Leo Percepied). This relationship mirrors Kerouac’s own relationship with Alene Lee during his stints in San Francisco. Kerouac never makes a solid attempt at examining how the relationship between him and Alene could be viewed as taboo by the dominant culture of 1950’s America. It’s unique that ultimately the relationship fails because of other factors: his drinking, both of their needs to be independent, his longing for her and ultimately her rejection that comes in the form of sexual promiscuity. I believe Keroauc never considered the relationship taboo, because of his bohemian ethics and his rebellion against dominating culture of the 1950s. In it’s simplest form, he doesn’t talk about it, because it doesn’t see it as effecting his relationship since it doesn’t affect him.



The prose of the novella indicates a challenge to the conventional structure and organization of a novel. It takes influence from the modernists like Joyce in its “stream-of-consciousness” style. Yet, I feel Kerouac is more poetic in his construction of sentences than Joyce. Kerouac wrote a lot. He carried a journal around with him and wrote about random experiences during the day. In fact, this novella, feels like a long unbroken experience. While I was reading it, it felt like I embarrassed, as if I stumbled upon some personal journal entry by a person I barely knew.



The other significant facet of this novella is Kerouac’s description of the culture surrounding the Beats. The discussions of poetry, the mindless hedonism, the excessive drinking, the apathy and emotions all seem to be the direct result of the romantic movement – modern day Byron’s, Shelly’s, and Blake’s. In the end, like all counter-culture movements, it seems like a dead end that evolves over time to encompass new young adults and adolescents. At the same time that Kerouac involves himself with the “The subterranean” he disassociates himself from them by casting an ironic eye-brow raise to his own infatuation with dime-store poetry and red-wine. To me, Kerouac transcended the Beats because he never seemed pretentious about a culture he helped create.

I'm just now starting to become familiar with the Beat generation. I thought Junky, by William Burroughs, was great, and Bukowski's first three novels were pretty good, so I wanted to check out something by the most popular Beat author. I see a few copies of On the Road in just about every used bookstore I visit, but I wanted to read something a little shorter, just to see if I liked Kerouac or not. That's why I chose The Subterraneans. The first thing I noticed was that the he hardly ever uses periods, making it hard to understand. I read Goodreads book reviews to help me with the plot. It's about a relationship/fling between a white man and a black woman in San Francisco in the 1950's. Interracial marriage wasn't made legal in all of the U.S. until 1967, and it's always sad when two people can't be completely open about their relationship. The couple talked about moving to Mexico so they could be open, which was interesting to me considering how progressive San Francisco is today. Finally, they ended their relationship, and he went back to partying with his drinking buddies. The ending was kind of sad, but I didn't feel very emotionally attached to the characters, so it didn't move me that much. I won't be reading any more Kerouac for a while.

Při poslední autogramiádě s Palim jsme si všimli, že už to je po několikáté, co nedorazila paní Bronislava, legenda literárního lajkování a naše motivace!

No a pak nastal šok ještě větší!! Pani Bronislava podle všeho deaktivovala svůj účet na goodreads a zmazala všechny hodnocení! A já se ptám, vážený národe, co se stalo? Ví někdo něco? Dostala se do poslanecký sněmovny? Je všechno v pořádku s paní Bronislavou? Nebo odešla do podzemí?

Jestli je v podzemí, tak je podzemník a tímto kotrmelcem se dostávám k recenzi této knihy od Kerouaca. Spoiler alert - v knize pani Bróňa nebyla. Takže 6/10.